Why couldn't they just
by Byakugan789
Summary: Ever get a rabid plot bunny that just wont leave you alone and interrupts all of your other work? Ever shake your head and wonder how the Heroes of your favorite story could miss something their world set up so blatantly? This thread is one of those moments. A series of self contained one shots that have been interrupting my real stories. PM me if you want to add to it.


I was reading the latter half of the seventh Harry potter book again, looking for something an author referred to that I wanted to argue, when I came across an idea that's hit me several times before. What would the war have been like if Harry were just a little more vicious? Keeping things as canon as possible, for your enjoyment;

Entrapment

By _Byakugan_

Harry stared at his friend as he sat in the tent, so recently returned. "So you're telling me that If I say Vold…"

"NO!" Ron roared, jumping up panicked.

"Right," Harry said embarrassed, "if I say the _dark lord_'s name, all of the wards I'm hiding under will drop and a bunch of Dear Tommy boy's followers will show up?"

Ron nodded and shrugged his shoulders slightly. "It's pretty random who'll show up" the redhead answered with a nod, relaxing slightly. "It's usually six of them though, and typically lower level flunkies, though not al… Harry, mate, why are you grinning like that?"

"Hermione…" Harry said, ignoring the Weasley now, but not looking at his other friend "You couldn't possibly happen to know the patronus variant that allows the order members to send messages could you?"

"Harry," the bushy brunette said hesitantly "what are you planning?"

"Don't worry yourself about that quite yet, I've done far crazier things over the year" he said turning to meet her eyes "and this time I won't be doing it alone."

The bookworm still looked dubious, but nodded. "The spell's pretty much the same as casting it against a dementor, Harry" she replied, going into lecture mode "same incantation and need for happy feelings, but in the case of messengers you need a feeling of protectiveness as a counterpoint to your 'happy thoughts' and a clear idea of the message you want to send."

Harry nodded and pointed his wand out of the tent flap before incanting. "_**Expecto Patronum!**_" Immediately a silver stag leapt into being, nodded at its creator and vanished in a streak of light. Harry sent off six more patroni before he sat down on his bed heavily, rubbing his face in his hands.

"Harry, what did you just do? I thought we were hunting Horcruxes?"

The boy who lived, or as the ministry was now calling him, the boy who ran looked up at his friends, grin hidden behind his hands. "Oh, we are, I've just gotten rather edgy is all. A good fight is something I think we all need, and you said there'd only be six of them…"

The opposing couple looked at each other and were about to say something, but a crack interrupted them and Harry jumped up with a smile and left the tent. "Kingsley! Excellent! How are you?"

"Confused." The massive black auror intoned solemnly in his deep bass. "Happy. Worried. Word has been scarce on your whereabouts and mission, your patronus came as a welcome shock."

"Yeah, sorry about that. I'm taking a short break from the mission at the moment. Thought you might like to join in, Ron said you were nearly picked up by those taboo snatcher blokes."

"Indeed." He was about to say more when Remus Lupin apparated in, carrying a trunk and looking frantic.

"Harry!" he shouted, somewhat weakly, dropping the trunk and wrapping the boy in a hug. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, thank you for contacting me, I'm…"

"Is that the trunk?" Harry asked brusquely.

"Ah, yes" the werewolf replied, hesitant and confused as the rest of the group watched on. Harry went to examine it, crouched down and looking at the seven locks. "Harry, If I may, why did you want Alastor's magical trunk?"

"Kingsley," Harry spoke sharply, "If a wizard is stunned, can he or she be placed under a stasis charm?"

The black man looked at the pale boy intently before answering slowly. "Yes and no." he answered. "The arithmancy for a stasis charm allows you to alter the flow of time around an object but dictates that there must be a container and the object must be organic, living or inanimate doesn't matter, nor it seems in many cases does the container as it can be as open as a plate or encasing as a maximum security lock-box so long as the object you wish to preserve is within its confines and organic. Also, breaking the container or damaging it in any significant way will release the charm so if you're doing what I imagine you'll want to be careful what you choose to be the container. I know it can contain humans because during the auror academy we were taught about a dark lord who liked to place political opponents under a stasis charm, blurry them and set something to break the container at some random time in the future so that they'd either die alone and suffocating long after people had stopped searching, or come back to find their world changed irrevocably in their absence. It caused quite a bit of chaos and spawned many ghost stories about the living dead and, in fact, we're still finding his victims popping up from their coffins every few years across the continent. There are also various capture spells that serve a similar purpose if you intend to go into the corps when this is all over. What is it, exactly, that you propose?"

There was a loud crack and Fred, George and Lee Jordan arrived in time to hear Harry's answer. "My mission's going poorly and I've spent the last few months itching for a fight. According to what Ron's told me about the Taboo, only six people show up at the site of a violation at any given time and it happens often enough that doing it a few times a night won't be noticed. Remus, Kingsley, Twins, I intend to snatch the snatchers."

Harry outlined his plan to the lot of them, taking and declining various pieces of advice and over the next hour they were joined by Ted Tonks who arrived with Dean Thomas and Dirk Creswell, Bill and Charlie Weasley and Hestia Jones. In the end there were fourteen of them total, twice the number of Messages Harry had sent out and three more than he had planned for. If anything though, that just made the entire situation easier.

In order to avoid crossfire the group set up in a wide arc, only covering a third of a circle. They ringed a clearing near, but still a good walk from the camp, and each had their own tree to hide behind if worse came to worst and someone competent showed up and the battle couldn't be finished with a clean and brutal efficiency.

Bill and Charlie had looked at Harry with a new and significantly more profound respect by the end of the initial meeting and Bill had offered to set up a series of runic markers he had learned over his travels to lock down apparition, brooms and portkeys quickly so they could stop the panicking junior death-eaters from escaping once the spells started flying in earnest. By the time the eldest Weasley boy was done the area was well and truly a kill zone.

The snatchers never stood a chance.

Five rounds, separated by between twenty minutes and an hour each, later and the group had snagged twenty seven assorted scum of the earth wizards and three werewolves from Greyback's pack. Each of the death eater juniors was interrogated individually before being loaded into pine box coffins, shrunk, labeled and put into stasis in the late Alastor Moody's trunk.

The mood at camp was high as Dobby and Kreatcher Served the gathered war party, Harry having sent of two more Patroni to the pair to meet them if they could avoid being tracked. He had learned already that full bellies meant high spirits while hungry people were poor company at best. Kreacher actually berated Harry in front of everyone for leaving Grimauld place, even as he served the lot of them from a large creamy pot of some sort of French stew. Jumbled with rice or something like that… whatever it was it was warm, filling and fishy, with a bit of a bite at the end of each mouthful. Definite comfort food.

The pattern continued like this for several weeks, with the group moving every night and gathering several more tents to house the night owls as Dean had decided to christen the group. Harry had gotten slightly melancholy at the name remembering Hedwig's sacrifice, but had approved of the name, telling Dean that it seemed a fitting honor for the bird when asked to explain his reaction. As the group grew a sort of camaraderie with each successful capture Harry began to explain his mission to the group in fits and starts. It wasn't until they bagged Bellatrix Lestrange in a surprise death eater accompaniment that had been occurring more and more recently that Harry spilled everything.

"We're fairly sure he's made seven Horcruxes" Harry explained to his horrified audience.

"Phylacteries." Dean murmured, stunned, even as he cut the scarred boy off.

"What?"

Dean blushed. "It's ah, part of a muggle game I used to play as a kid. I thought it was geeky back then, but I picked it up when I first got my letter. It's called dungeons and dragons. Creatures called Lich sacrifice their souls for immortality. They divide it up between a demon god and one or more jars called Phylacteries. It explains why the bugger was so hard to kill last time around."

Most of the wizards, Harry included were dumbfounded, but Hermione was blushing too. "You knew about this?" the BWL asked her incredulous.

"Well, sort of." The bushy haired girl admitted. "I never really got into D&D, even after I started Hogwarts, but I played a few times, read the books once. I just deemed them to be too silly for good source material." She blushed again before pushing on hurriedly. "Regardless. We've destroyed three of them, his diary from his time at Hogwarts which he entrusted to the Malfoys'," The group looked deeply impressed at this, assuming they had raided Malfoy manor to retrieve and destroy the object, "The Gaunt House Ring which was found at his grandparents' house; Slytherin's locket" there was a gasp at this but nobody interrupted "which we actually found a few years ago without realizing it and had to track down to Umbrage's neck in the ministry courtroom, and we're fairly sure the last three are his pet snake" this drew another grin from Dean "Helga Hufflepuff's cup in Bellatrix here's vault and something of Ravenclaws, though we don't know where that might be.

"Probably her diadem." Bill Weasley offered. "It's the only thing she's ever rumored to have made personally that isn't accounted for." Everybody looked at him. "What?" he asked, defensively "I'm a curse breaker, I bring in and set traps around treasure, I took an interest; so sue me!"

"And there we have it, prime possibility number one!" Hermione said, sounding impressed. "So, Mr. Tomb Raider, Think you can help us get into the Lestrange Vault?"

Bill put his hands together, fingers splayed and steepled while the twins whispered hurriedly about something or other. "It's… possible…" he said haltingly. "I'm still working at the main branch Gringotts morning shifts," he chuckled darkly for a moment "I'd sort of expected Fleur to be mad at me for being gone most nights, but she's actually quite understanding in that respect, she's furious that I won't let her come with me on these raids though. Between the two of us we should probably be able to get you into the Lestrange vault, just be warned that being included in the adventures going to be a requirement for getting us in there. Despite her poor showing at the tournament she wasn't chosen as Beaubatons' champion for nothing."

Harry nodded slowly before gesturing down at their captured guest. "Do you think we'll have to revive her? We hit her with two volleys of eleven stunners each, even if we didn't all hit her both times I'm not even certain she can be woken up at this point."

At this Ted stepped forward. "Me wife's a healer," he said with a shrug "and her sister. She's taught me quite a number of diagnostic and healing spells, I'm pretty sure I can fix this iff'n ye give me the chance."

Harry nodded and the slightly portly muggleborn went to work. It turned out that they'd stunned Bellatrix into a near coma and she _could_ be brought out with a few hours at saint mungo's of a few hundred galleons for the right potions. In the end however they decided against it. Ted held a patroni conversation with his wife and daughter and it was decided that they wanted to take this opportunity to see about healing the obvious psychological scars piled upon the Black sister. But that would have to wait for later.

Raiding Alastor Moody's house and coming out with a rack full of preserved, fresh polyjuice for the earlier disastrous 'Battle of the Nine Potters' Harry, Bill and Fleur went to Gringotts the next morning. After sequestering themselves in the couples office Harry took the potion to become Bella, donned her robes and wand, hid Bill under his invisibility cloak and went to demand to see 'her' vault. After presenting 'her' wand and key to the goblins as proof they were taken down to the vaults. There was a bit of commotion when the Waterfall of truth washed away the polyjiuce potion and pulled Harry's cloak off of Bill, but the elder Weasley calmly and quickly confounded the creature he'd spent the last several years working, in part, for and went back under the cloak, handing Harry another vial of the potion, just as they'd planned.

Once they'd arrived at the vault Harry'trix opened it and Bill and Fleur Weasley went to work on disenchanting all everything, a process that was helped along significantly as Fleur directed Harry on how to use Bellatrix's wand to perform the same counter spells as they were. Between the potion altered body, the wand that originally cast most of the spells and two cursebreakers the job was done swiftly. Searching around the vault Harry'trix quickly found a cup that seemed as if it was calling to his/her gut and placed the cursed artifact in his/her moleskin pouch. That done they began loading the entire rest of the vault into magically expanded bags. Books, weapons, artifacts, gold, silver and copper each had their own separate bags which the couple had heavily charmed and enchanted to be bottomless, weightless, shrinkable, safe storing and resistant against most types of low to mid-level dark magic that became stored within.

The surprise came when, during their packing they came across a _second_ Gryffindor sword. It took them a few minutes of excitement for Harry to remember that Ted and Gornock had mentioned that a fake had been taken from Hogwarts and stored in the, now nearly empty, Legstrange vault.

On the way out they were confronted by the albino Guard dragon. Standing not a meter in front of them over top of a smug looking Goblin the creature lifted up its lips on one side and growled, deep and menacingly. As Harry'trix and Bill got ready for a fight Fleur simply scoffed and let off a wave of magic, turning the four non-Veela present to putty in her hands and making Harry uncomfortably aware just how thorough a potion Polyjuice was. Sure she had both dragon and Goblin leering lethargically at her the quarter Veela turned around and slapped her blushing, but noticeably not befuddled, husband and the crimson faced Harry'trix who was shifting uncomfortably and twitching in an effort to keep his/her hands from going to his/her breasts and groin.

After getting over his embarrassment Harry'trix got a mad grin on 'her' face and shot a spell decapitating the Goblin and began to move towards the Dragons back.

"Harry!" Bill yelled, tearing the cloak off of his shoulders. "What in Merlin's name did you do that for?"

"Well,.." Harry'trix drawled as he began climbing the starved and tortured dragon's back "I'm wearing Bellatrix right now and we've just robbed her blind. Not only was that Goblin trying to set a dragon on us for being thieves it's fairly well known by now that Bella was just down here. So, dead Goblin, total withdrawal and riding out of here on their own security dragon will firmly cement it in the goblin's minds that Voldemort and his followers are up to no good. If we're lucky Lord Moldyshorts will have a full scale Goblin rebellion paring down his followers by the time I'm done with this and from talking to your brother after the first task I get the distinct impression that Dragons are a lot more sentient than most people give them credit for. If we play this right the Death Eaters will be cut off from all funds, under attack from one of wizarding kind's biggest enemies and still without their master himself because I got a vision last night that he's still on the continent looking for the elder wand."

As if to accent his point the Dragon shrieked and quickly maneuvered itself so that Fleur and Bill were right at the position Harry had used to climb up and lowered itself. "A dragon listening in to our conversation and willingly letting itself be ridden." Bill said in an awed voice. "You, Mr. Potter, are a strange and dangerous man." With that the Trio got themselves securely mounted and they were off. The freed dragon tearing through obstacles and narrow passageways until they reached the top, though how the creature knew its way up without the goblin carts to guide it none of them rightly knew. Harry took one final sip of Polyjuice just before they crashed their way out into the main atrium of the bank and sowed chaos as they tore and stamped their way through both rows of teller booths, Bellatrix's smiling, shrieking, cursing voice and face clear for all to see.

The celebration that night as the loot was divided and Gryffindor's real sword clove the goblet in half was a high point in their fight Dobby and Kreature had outdone themselves and provided a veritable feast for the Night Owls. The situation just got better when Fred and George showed up halfway through the meal with a silver circlet bearing a sapphire, two moonstones and a tugging sensation in Harry's gut that marked it as a Horecrux.

"Where did you guys get this?" Hermione breathed, eyes wide as the lot of them confirmed that it was indeed not only Ravenclaws lost diadem, but the fifth Horecrux.

"Hogwarts." George replied easily.

"In the Old DA room," Fred added.

"the room of requirement." George finished happily.

"It was in the middle of the"

"Room of lost things."

"We remembered it because"

"We saw it there when we were taking care of"

"Malfoy's work on the vanishing cabinet."

"We'd thought it was a fake when we first found it"

"and that it'd been hidden there to keep the forger out of trouble"

"But then Harry here told us your story and we figured"

"We'd bring it here for a closer look."

Harry remained silent through their pair's entire explanation and simply stood up and hugged them both at the same time, causing both to complain about their ribs and not being able to breathe. "Now," Harry said to the group "If we can only get the snake before his grand snakishness returns from hallow hunting in Europe then the fun can really begin!"

The next few days were chaos, both for the group and Great Britain as a whole. The Goblins did indeed rebel against the ministry in force and Bill managed to convince them to allow the Order members and the night owls to assist in their assaults on death-eater houses, turning the terrorists favored terror technique, the disappearing, on them. House after house fell under the tiny green skins' rampage as the goblins happily tore apart their own wards and savaged any member of Voldemort's forces that the 'light wizards' didn't manage to capture fast enough. The high point came when the snake was found during a raid on the Malfoy manor along with a basement full of political prisoners, including Ollivander who the Goblins took a great deal of glee in rescuing as it put the wand maker under a life debt to the goblin nation, one they fully intended to use to extort the man for hints on wand lore.

Eventually the raids made their way to the Ministry itself, the Order, Owls and Goblins collaborating to form a list of targets for the little gremlins Ire. Harry and Hermione took a particular pleasure in making sure Deloris Umbride's name was at the top of that list by casually pointing out her name on the signature list for literally dozens of anti-goblin laws along with hundreds of other anti-creature ones. Not that it kept him from throwing up when he found a group of clan leaders sitting around her body in a circle, roasting the fat, stumpy witch and eating her as they took battle reports.

In the end though they didn't manage to get Rookwood before the DoM Deatheater used his mark to signal their lord and master. The final battle was disturbingly anticlimactic as Riddle, Furious and appalled beyond belief at the total lack of forces at his disposal upon return and the destruction of his soul jars, stormed Harry's position and took over a hundred stunners straight to the face. Far more interesting was the strange and strained political atmosphere between the remaining three fifths of the Wizengamont who wasn't in league with or marked by Voldemort's organization and the Goblins who had by now entrenched themselves within the properties and offices of the wizards they had taken down.

In a single moment of frustrated enlightenment Harry Potter and Ron Wealsely had changed the face of Wizarding Britain forever.

One hundred years later.  
Tom Marvolo Riddle laying in the long term spell damage ward at Saint mungo's under heavy wards finally breathes his last, lack of magic use allowing his body to shrivel and grow old enough to die of natural causes alone and largely forgotten by the world at large...

Book, second year  
Ring, Fifth year  
Locket, just before story start  
Cup, Bella's vault  
Diadem, Hogwarts  
Harry, well…  
Snake, by Voldemort  
Voldemort himself.


End file.
